This invention relates to an alignment device placed into position by a trainman between adjacent long shank couplers on two railroad cars.
The problem of linerally aligning railroad couplers prior to the coupling operation is well known in the art. As railroad cars became longer and heavier, the coupler shanks necessarily were increased in length and weight until at the present time they weigh of the order of five to six hundred pounds and to align them manually requires extreme effort by the trainman. The problem is compounded not only by the size of the coupler and draft gear but by the fact that these become rusted, bent and worn in operation so that they do not freely move into the necessary aligned position.
A still further problem exists in that in order to position such a heavy coupler manually, the trainman was required to stand between the railroad cars in order to apply the large forces needed. If the engineer unintentionally moved the train while the operator was attempting to position the couplers, he was in a very dangerous position. A large number of prior art coupler positioning devices have been developed which involve centering arrangements and centering spring and gear systems that are designed to maintain the couplers in a constant pre-aligned position. One example of this type of system as shown in H. C. Buhoup, U.S. Pat. No. 950,472 patented on Mar. 1, 1910 for "DRAFT GEAR".
An additional relatively complicated spring alignment system for this purpose is shown in G. H. Forsyth, U.S. Pat. No. 1,137,961 issued on May 4, 1950 for "DRAFT RIGGING MECHANISM". A still further spring pivoting system for this purpose is described and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 950,489 issued to W. R. Mathews on Mar. 1, 1910 for "DRAFT GEAR FOR RAILWAY CARS". An additional spring actuated type of centering system for drawbars is shown and described in J. F. O'Conner, U.S. Pat. No. 802,469 issued on Oct. 24, 1905 for "DRAW BAR CENTERING DEVICE FOR RAILWAY DRAFT RIGGING".
All the prior art approaches tended in the direction of expensive complicated mechanisms that were not readily adaptable to standard railway cars or to their relatively standardized coupler apparatus.